As usual school has been keeping me busy. I will do my best to make this post entertaining. I have finished the paper for my first internship and turned it in, YAY! In total, it was 58 pages. Now I have to start on a ten page paper that is due by the 11th. I think I should be fine.
This week I have had two afternoon extracurricular activities. They have been conversation activities. Basically, I choose a topic and kids can come into my classroom and have a discussion. I chose sports on Tuesday as I mentioned in the previous post. Yesterday, I chose “Extreme Sports!” I downloaded a bunch of Podcasts from i-tunes. I had freestyle motocross, snowboarding, wakeboarding, parkour, and BMX. It was nice to be able to actually show them this stuff. Trying to explain a boat that is built specifically for wakeboarding is difficult when their concept of a boat is strictly utility. I forgot to get some bull riding footage though.
Last night we went to Druid’s, an Irish pub. It was interesting. It was lady’s night, so the girls were excited to go. I really wasn’t very excited. When we walked in, I noticed that the only girls that were there were the waitresses. Needless to say, we were pretty popular. Well, I wasn’t…
I noticed this short Mexican guy showing another guy his new tattoos. They were on his shoulders, and obviously very fresh. He turned and I saw something familiar, the Star of Texas bordered with , “The State of Texas.” I asked him where he was from and instantly made a new friend. Now, by the looks of him, Jimmy isn’t the type of person that you want befriending right away. He pulled up a seat, then asked if he could join.
Jimmy is an oil driller. He was obviously a Texan with his wranglers, boots, and a denim button up draped over a classy grey wife beater. He was just missing the cowboy hat. Instead, he was wearing an out of place Nautica cap. The good news is that he had it flipped inside out with the bill up. Classic!
Now, Jimmy was a talker. He told us about all the places he had been in the world. Africa, Australia, Columbia, South East Asia, and the list goes on. We heard about how he’s has partied all over the world and Dubai was the best. Maybe it was Bahrain? His stories started getting a little strange. He was telling us how he saw a soldier on the border of Columbia mowing down people with a machine gun. And how when he was in a part of Africa, he saw semi trucks driving over the dead corpses that were littered all over the road.
It was about this point that a group of the Russian girls from the dorm showed up. I made the conscious decision to turn away from Jimmy and talk to the Russians. I did however hear him talking about a 30 foot anaconda that was killed when he was in the jungles of Africa. He said the villagers had a feast. I would really like to record all of his stories and write about his life. I would call it “The Fantastical Adventures of Jimmy.”
Not too long after I relocated my attention, the girls I went with decided to head back. It was still pretty early, so I told the Russians I would just stay out with them. Here’s where the night turned, well, not bad, but not great. I had said something that I don’t even remember now, but someone heard me wrong and said, “did you say club?” I promise all of you, I did not say club. It was too late, there was no turning back.
We ended up going to a place called Bar 88. We had gone there last weekend, and it was strange. This time we had the opposite issue. Instead of creepy old guys, there were creepy young guys. When I say young, I mean these kids were probably 14 or 15. I’m pretty sure they were Russian too.
The area around the stage was pretty slow, so I took it upon myself to be the life of the party, as I have done many times here in China. At one point I was singing into a microphone with a DJ that sings from time to time. By the time I was ready to leave, I think I had about 15 or more people get up onto the dancing stage they have there. It was fun, but I’m a bit tired today from staying out late.
School was good today. Tonight is the talent show and the costume party. This will be interesting. I don’t have anything to dress up in, so… Not going to get dressed up.
Chris- Adviser Abroad China
Cultural Embrace @ www.culturalembrace.com
www.flickr.com/photos/cschave
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